This weekend at the DBR: The only thing missing this weekend was Kathleen’s company. I went to the movies (Damsels in Distress), spent a few hours with Will and had a great chat with his parents. I listened to the Ring while tidying the apartment (Karajan), and then had the most extraordinary implant of new information at the Museum, where Marc LeBlanc took me through the Dawn of Egypt show. Sunday was a day for lazing through the Times; by way of hard work, I compiled a new weekend playlist. The best was Kathleen’s coming home from her weekend in North Carolina.

This weekend at the DBR: Well, it wasn’t spent at the computer. The Five-Year Engagement. Housekeeping. A cocktail party, a big dinner out, and a pulverizing hangover. It doesn’t take much to bring on one of those anymore!

This weekend at the DBR: The royalty rule holds that it is improper for anyone but the sovereign to introduce a topic of conversation. You don’t have to hobnob with royals, though, to find that there are moments in life when the rule makes a lot of sense.

This weekend at the DBR: Somehow I found time, amidst all the cooking and housekeeping, to do a bit of reading (Elizabeth Taylor’s last novel, Blaming — extraordinary, but not to be read first of her books), as well as to watch My Week With Marilyn and the movie that it’s about the making of, The Prince and the Showgirl.

From now on, at least at this site, the weekend begins on Friday. What’s become clear in the past few months is that my schedule falls into two blocs: Monday-Thursday alone and Friday-Sunday in company. I’ve got to dash off right now, in fact, to have lunch with Ray Soleil, after which we’ll drop in at the Museum. I’ll be heading downtown this evening as usual, to see what my grandson is up to. It’s in the interest of mental health that I stop regarding Friday as one the alone days.

Not that I wouldn’t love one, just to spend it reading. The Righteous Mind is incredibly exciting — I have to put it down from time to time, just to swallow its mounting import — and Elizabeth Taylor’s A View of the Harbour has just taken an unexpected turn. More anon.